Blawg Review #2

Welcome to the sophomore edition of the Blawg Review. We assume you have brought your sharpened, #2 lead pencils, your registration card, and a valise full of small, unmarked bills. So let’s begin with a some light stretching, shall we?

Now, down to cases, as they say. And do I have to keep saying “blawg”? I don’t think they can make me.

LAW BLOG BY THE BAYThe mysterious “SF Attorney” of the Legal Commentary blog (don’t worry, his blah-blog name balances out his exotic real last name — good move!) sends in this link in which the California Supreme Court diddles with the ancient and venerable doctrines of contract and — suprise — decides they aren’t exactly really contracts so much, after all. SFA describes his blog as a “Discussion of all things legal and not-so-legal.” Yes, he’s leaving his options open — but his mastery of the niceties of the California Practice is not for nothing. And hell, give him credit: His blog description didn’t use the words “rant” or “random.” If your wandering briefcase ever points you towards the Pacific, you must take a look at how this gent dices and slices West Coast exotica such as the California SLAPP law. As far as I know, SF Lawyer wants to remain anonymous, but you can email him from the blog.

JUST ANOTHER JUSTICEMoving from the city where the ground shakes to Notes from the Legal Underground, Evan Schaeffer sends in this item, a pre-publication review, based on a press kit, of the new magazine Justicethat will debut on June 21. Evan’s kind of shy about expressing his opinion about this magazine, so you may have to read his review really closely to figure out his subtle take. The post is called “Justice is for Morons.” Frankly, Evan may be onto something. The home page at Justice does make Steve Brill sound like Learned Hand. Incidentally, if you like this “carnival” atmosphere — and Evan does — check out his roundup of law school hijinx on the web. They’re not just dunking those judicial wigs into inkwells any more, believe you me! No wonder they’re so tired. And so uptight — maybe not — about rankings!

DON’T CONFUSE ME WITH DELAYDid we say hijinx? Well, reading the editorial pages, you’d think nothing could be higher or jinxier than Tom Delay and his friends, so lucky for us JMoore of JurisPundit gets political this week. He’s challenging the conventional wisdom that Texas has been horribly gerrymandered by the GOP. JMoore finds that not only is the alleged gerrymandering no worse than California is gerrymandered for the Democrats, but that actually the Texas congressional caucus isn’t hardly any different from the state’s Republican / Democratic split at large. Take a look — this is good, thoughtful law blogging for a guy with two consecutive capital letters in one name.

RAP TALK JUMPS SHARK; JAG BLOG AWAGOn the other hand, blogs with three consecutive capital letters can be quite fine, if somewhat suggestive, too. The JAG Central blog — “The world’s first weblog devoted to military justice and military law issues” — this week demonstrates that it is, indeed, all that, and links to a storyin which U.S. Senator Bill “Major” Nelson publicly uses the word “dissing” as a way of describing how he believes the Bush Administration is treating the United Nations. “Dissing” is evidently a word found in a charming urban subcultural patois of some kind — found in Florida, perhaps? — which term, we have learned, is meant as a (much needed!) shorthand for “failing to show a requisite amount of respect.” It’s the sort of nuanced, articulate style of argumentation you’d expect from a member of the world’s most exclusive club.

STAMP OF STUPIDITYBack Cali-way, SoCalLawBlog tells us about how the D.C. Circuit has affirmed that the failure to put a postage stamp on a routine mailing to the U.S. Copyright Office should indeed cost the “once mighty” MGM studio $10 million. The good news is, they’ve got a plan to make it back.

Okay, then, fine, Ribstein’s not the first one to ask it, but frankly he’s the first one who looks quite this natty in a suit and has an endowed chair in a law school to ask it: “What, then, is the future of student edited law reviews? In a prior post I defended them along Hayekian lines — they ‘let a million flowers bloom.’ [Uh oh — that makes one Lenin and one Mao allusion in a post about a libertarian! — Sorry! ed.] But now blogs can do that, much faster, and without the perversities of the law review selection and editing process we all love to hate.”

NO FEE LUNCHBut how free-marketish, really, should the legal profession be? It is, after all — as demonstrated by brainy, bloggy practioners like David Swanner — a learned profession, not a furshlugginer business. That’s why David Giacalone of the f/k/a/ blog reminds us not to jump so fast to the world of “alternative billing” arrangements, “value pricing” and the like, whose evangelists glibly “offer the easily-tempted lawyer a paradise of premium clients and fees, with increased profits, while never probing the ethical and fiduciary duties of the lawyer to insure that the client is fully informed, treated fairly (and without manipulation) and, in the end, charged a fee that is reasonable for competent and diligent services.” As Giacalone, whose blog has a haiku motif, might put it:

Okay, I’m not sure that’s exactly what he meant. But I do think he would take some heart from this posting on an anonymous blog called Opinionistas about the humanity of corporate practice, vel non.

USE ME

Along similar, if somewhat less prosaic lines — okay, a lot less prosaic lines — David Jacobson’s External Insights blog just wants to “help[] businesses make good decisions.” Including lawyers. In this post he talks about the “usability” of firm systems. In law firms, David would like us to be really clear on where to plug these darned things in. He might want to start with George’s Employment Blog, which talks about the whole making-it-work thing as applied to blogs, blogging, business and bald-faced alliteration. It’s a pretty handy employer’s guide to understanding how this New Thing is going to affect your business and your relationship with your busy, thoughtful and bloggy employees.

BLOGGING FOR THE RECORD

Evan Brown blogs regularly about cases involving the Internet. And that’s why his blog is called Internet Cases. If you’ve read this far, you should be putting Evan’s feed into your RSS reader. Last week he wrote about a case from North Carolina that gives a good example of what not to say on one’s weblog. Stuff like, you know, “I’m going to drop a boulder onto the highway.” That is, if you’re going to go ahead and do it.

Well, it’s been a long night, and I have more Passover cleaning to do plus a motion in Queens tomorrow. Hope you enjoyed the “carnival,” but please finish the hot dogs outside until after the holiday. (The buns, the buns!) Blawg Review has information about next week’s host, and instructions for how to get your law blog posts reviewed in upcoming issues. And readers: Your stubs are good at next week’s show, being held at the Appellate Law and Practice blog, followed the week after by the Law & Entrepreneurship blog by the same Gordon Smith referred to above and a cast of law students. They blog, you decide!

Ron Coleman

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Robert Stephan Cohen is the co-founder of Cohen Lans LLP, a law firm in New York City which specializes in family law and commercial litigation. In his family law practice, Cohen represents clients from the business, financial, professional, political and entertainment arenas with substantial net worths, whose problems involve sophisticated financial, valuation and tax issues, as well as child custody disputes. He is an active trial lawyer, yet he also adeptly negotiates resolutions to marital dissolutions when possible. Prior to starting Cohen Lans LLP in the fall of 2003, he was a founding partner of Morrison Cohen Singer & Weinstein. LLP, a 90 lawyer general practice firm in New York City. For 19 years he was the firm’s Chair and headed its Matrimonial Department while also continuing to be involved in business litigation matters.
In March 2002, Cohen was profiled in The New York Times as “one of the most powerful matrimonial lawyers in the country.” He is frequently quoted in major newspapers and magazines and has been featured in New York Magazine and Town & Country Magazine.

About the Title: The question of whether consumers are likely to be confused is the signal inquiry that determines if a trademark infringement claim is valid. I write here about trademark law, copyright law, free speech (mostly as it relates to the Internet) and legal issues related to blogging.

As for me, I'm Ron Coleman, an AV-rated partner at Archer - Attorneys at Law,** a firm of about 180 attorneys with offices in NJ, NY, PA and DE (but active nationwide). I've been called an "IP maven" but I'm really a commercial litigator with a special interest in copyright and trademark infringement claims involving the Internet, including advising clients how to avoid them or - if necessary - how to make the other guy wish he had.

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THIS BLOG IS ONLY A BLOG, NOT LEGAL ADVICE. IT IS IN PART AN ADVERTISEMENT FOR LEGAL SERVICES BY ME, RONALD D. COLEMAN, BUT I AM NOT YOUR LAWYER. YOU ARE NOT MY CLIENT. JUST WALK BESIDE ME AND BE MY FRIEND.